Bio master’s programs see enrollment jump

Enrollment in the University’s biotechnology and biomedical engineering master’s programs has increased from 12 to 65 students from that time 2012, according to a University smooth release.

The quintupling in enrollment more than the past four years comes taken in the character of the University has invested heavily in the programs, expanding a equal in ~ of both on- and off-campus opportunities ~ the sake of graduate students, said Master’s Program Director Jacquelyn Schell, who is also an assistant professor of molecular pharmacology, science of the functions of animals and vegetables and biotechnology.

One such opportunity is the fresh offering of industry co-ops to divide into regular intervals students. Co-ops are six-month-far-reaching, full-time, paid internships at biotechnology or biomedical companies that take measures students with course credit and authorize them to gain hands-on actual observation in their industries, Schell said.

When undergraduates from other universities lay upon, “they always mention that Brown’s single in kind of the few places they’ve heard almost with a master’s level co-op,” she added.

Both Erica Kahn GS, a fifth-year biomedical engineering pupil, and Andrea Chin GS, a fifth-year biotechnology pupil, identified the co-op option similar to one of the defining features of the University’s master’s programs. Kahn has worked forward drug delivery at a pharmaceutical and biotechnology meeting of friends, while Chin will begin an internship in Indianapolis in mid-May.

“The co-op selection is something that sets the Brown program apart,” Chin related, adding that she feels that her actual observation in Indianapolis will help her decide that which career to pursue in the coming time. “I’ve always wanted to fare medicine, but I also want to perceive all the other paths.”

New succession offerings in biotechnology and biomedical engineering furthermore strengthen the programs, Schell said. Since 2012, five to six renovated classes have been offered to master’s students that are specifically designed to prepare students ~ the sake of industry jobs or for a PhD program.

The chance; fit to work in labs is a different factor that has increased the programs’ popularity. Both Chin and Kahn are engaged in examination projects: Chin is studying the molecular effects of repetitive traumatic brain hurt, while Kahn is working in every orthopedics lab at Rhode Island Hospital.

Many students who participate in research “end up by publications, which are the currency of the philosophical knowledge field,” Schell said.

“The master’s students are as a matter of fact making significant contributions to the research enterprise of Brown,” said Jeffrey Morgan, co-counsellor of the Center of Biomedical Engineering. “They’re positively enhancing our research capabilities.”

The University’s strain to increase on- and off-campus opportunities as antidote to biotechnology and biomedical engineering students is motivated through both greater student interest and a thriving job market, Schell said.

“In 2012, we determined that this was a very marketable degree,” Schell said. “Students in bio receive interest in applied sciences instead of fit science for science’s sake,” she added.

In fresh years, students have shown an increased impulse to use their training in biology to “suppose a product or to cure a infirmity,” she added. Morgan agreed that extending student interest is a nationwide miracle. Job opportunities for candidates with a master’s space in these fields are also plenteous, he said.

“If you expect to New England and Boston, you attend that there are lots and lots of medical device (companies), pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies,” he said. Students who graduate from the University’s biotechnology and biomedical engineering programs esteem many options: jobs in these industries, research at hospitals and universities or the pursuance of a higher degree, Schell added.